Comments on: Storing CO2 Underground (New MIT Study)

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 22:44:00 +0000

Agreed. We’re moving to a clean grid via a clean/dirty natural gas phase.

Nice thing is, gas turbines are very dispatchable and they have a fuel price. If there’s wind or solar available those NG plants will be turned off.

Then, my guess, battery storage will be cheaper than NG plants and the plants will rot away….

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 15:38:00 +0000

You might be spot on.

By: Thomas Gerke

Thomas Gerke — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 13:17:00 +0000

I think the US will come to renewables in quite a different way, than places like Germany.

The sad & rather disgusting, yet very effective extraction of unconventional natural gas reserves (fracking), will tranform the US energy sector, away from centralized power stations towards more decentralized gas fired power stations.

Once the system becomes more and more decentralized, people & buisnesses will realize that combining it with local wind & solar makes it even cheaper for them.

It’s the dirty road to a renewable future… but at least it’s a road.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 19:28:00 +0000

Or at least a ruse to delay the closing of existing coal plants.

We just aren’t building new coal plants in the US. There are a small number that were started some years ago and are yet to be finished and their is, I think, one new coal plant approved. But overall we’ve quit building coal plants.

The coal industry is fighting a rear guard action in the US, holding off their eventual defeat.

By: Thomas Gerke

Thomas Gerke — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 18:24:00 +0000

I think this entire CCS / clean coal stuff is a ruse to legitimate new Coal Power plants.
They will build a few trial systems, encounter problems implementing it, the cost will rise and then they say it’s not worth it… but now we got these new coal power stations and they work for at least another 40 years…
At least they are more efficent! (30% -> 40%)

By: Wilmot McCutchen

Wilmot McCutchen — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 17:03:00 +0000

And what is the plan for the highly saline brine that must be extracted from the deep saline formations to make way for the CO2? It’s not empty space down there. Saline brine can’t be dumped on the surface. And what about the possibility of injection pushing brine into the drinking water?